Seeking business enterprises sustainability through Information Communication Technology: Strategies for large professional firms in Kisumu city - Kenya

Firms seek to find new ways of conducting business at a cost effective manner. Information Communication Technology (ICT)is seen as the preferred choice for organizations in facilitating their business operations thus improving the speed, accuracy and efficiency of the entire business processes. This study explores the opportunities, challenges, and prospects available for large Professional Firms in Kisumu City - Kenya. ICT cement and leverage the potentials of business enterprises, the purpose of this study was to examine the extent to which ICT integration matches business requirements. The specific objectives were to find out the types of risks associated with ICT use, to assess the perceived benefits of ICT use in large professional businesses enterprises in Kisumu City andto explore the various factors, if any, militating against the effective utilization of ICTs for sustainability and profitability. The study is justified in that, since ICT is regarded as an enablerthat facilitates productivity and enhances quality of output, the recommendations from the findings can be replicated by similar firms. This study adopted the form of a case study design with a target population of all management employees of the three large professional services firms in Kisumu Central Business District, which was estimated at 150 employees.Stratified random sampling was used to select the respondents of 45 as sample size, forming 30% of the target population. A self administered questionnaire was used to collect information from the respondents. From the findings, ICT associated risks were eminently noted. Therefore, poor risk management was found to be a constraint to the success of ICT integration into the business processes. Further, a lot more was needed to improve the ICT integration fit with business process.Firms should therefore have a full operational Risk assessment mechanism to identifying all the potential risk threats to the firm and mitigating them timely before disrupting the system.